One of the best TV channels I get on my satellite dish is Trio, which describes itself as "the only pop culture and arts channel." It's actually the "weird stuff" channel with a schedule that includes reruns of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, old Letterman shows from when he was on NBC, music shows, documentaries about the entertainment industry and the occasional outright oddity. At the moment, they're rerunning old episodes of Battle of the Network Stars. I tend to watch it rather often.
DirecTV is now superimposing on Trio broadcasts an occasional message that says, "DirecTV's carriage agreement with Trio network expires on December 31st. If we cannot reach an acceptable agreement by December 31st, Trio will no longer be available to DirecTV subscribers." Trio has set up this webpage to urge people to write to DirecTV and say it matters to them if Trio is in the channel lineup.
This is probably about money and nothing else. Last time I heard, about half of Trio's viewers came to them via DirecTV, so losing that outlet might finish them off. DirecTV is figuring they can get better terms out of Trio. Trio is figuring DirecTV won't want to piss off subscribers by taking away something they already get. It's all a game of Chicken but I decided it wouldn't hurt to tell DirecTV I really want to keep seeing Trio on my satellite, so I filled out the form on the Trio site. You might want to do likewise.